The Advent of Legal Empowerment Approaches

Particularly since the 1990s, international development assistance has focused on programming aimed at strengthening the rule of law in both developing and conflict-affected societies. The dominant approach has been activities geared towards strengthening the formal justice system, however in the last decade, the impact of such programming began to be questioned. From this emerged a new way of thinking about law, development and access to justice: legal empowerment. While legal empowerment has expanded in many regions, the WANA region hasn't made significant progress.